NSA Spies On International Payments

jones_supa writes "The National Security Agency (NSA) widely monitors international payments, banking and credit card transactions, according to documents seen by SPIEGEL. Information acquired by the former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden, show that the spying is conducted by a branch called Follow the Money (FTM). The collected information then flows into the NSA's own financial databank, called Tracfin, which in 2011 contained 180 million records. Some 84 percent of the data is from credit card transactions."

News?

[zeronitro]

Is it really news that a spy agency is spying? "oh look at them doing their job!"

Write a test for control

[Anonymous Coward]

If a nation were like a computer programming project, we would write tests to continually ensure its correct operation. One test would be to ensure that voters, not the government, are in control of their own nation.

What kind of test would make sure it is so? Maybe successfully voting a new party in power, one that has never before been on top?

Re:Bitcoin FTW

[TWiTfan]

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the NSA has a whole office that does nothing but spy on Bitcoin sales, Bitcoin trading, infiltrating Bitcoin exchanges, etc. With 35,000 employees and God-like computing muscle, I imagine they've devoted no small amount of resources to monitoring (and perhaps sabotaging) Bitcoin and other grey market currencies.

Belgacom hacked by the NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/News/130916_Belgacom

Belgium's federal public prosecutors have said that the bugging of the Belgian telecom giant was probably the work of 'international state-sponsored cyber espionage'. Earlier it emerged that Belgacom's internal systems had been hacked for a period of two years.

The former state telecom monopoly and Belgium's largest telecommunications operator has confirmed the news of the hacking. The daily De Standaard believes that the US intelligence service NSA is behind the espionage.

The hacking came to light after Belgacom enlisted the services of a specialised Dutch firm to check its operations. It emerged that the company's communications infrastructure had been infected with sophisticated malware. As a result outsiders have been able to listen in to Belgacom's systems.

Re:American Exceptionalism and Moral Superiority

[Salgak1]

You have an unusual view of the states, to consider minority religious practices as the norm.

And I'll note, that WE home-schooled, due to the totally inadequate results of the local elementary and middle schools.

Hell, **I** had a larger and more varied library than the local elementary and middle schools combined.

As for homeschooling results, both daughers passed their GED at 15, the earliest age allowed at the time, and both are 3.5 GPAs or better in college. Both can code, know history (American and World), and speak several languages (English, Spanish, French, German, and smatterings of Russian and Japanese. . . ),

And as for religion: I'm agnostic, wife is a Spiritualist, and the daughters are Pagan and Atheist, respectively.

So, you were saying ???

Re:American Exceptionalism and Moral Superiority

[moteyalpha]

From a technical standpoint this is interesting and if what someone else said is true that serial numbers of bills are tracked going out and in the bank it is a type of graph. Since I was recently reviewing courses at MIT on algorithms and matrix math and neural networks it clicked.
It is another point of association that allows a person to be connected to others. I don't know about them, but it would seem that with the right memory and compute power it would be possible to model the entire society like weather. It would be a simpler task than weather as it is very granular. I could even imagine some type of Navier Stokes / finite element analysis that would tell you what might happen tomorrow.
It is only worrisome if the people who do it are crooked and politicians are known for their honesty and commitment to people's interest above all possibility of personal gain. Just look at , um, okay I will think of an example, give me a minute.
And that made me think of something that would be excluded and that seems wrong. If I am tracking money and I find that a large amount of money flows from company "A" through a dozen twisty little passages and ends up in a politicians pocket and that next day they vote to give them a specific contract, that would be an indicator of graft and I would bet that it would be excluded as a matter of course as those same people decide how much money the NSA will get to play with. Sounds like a great tool. Senator, we need another trillion, and by the way, nobody will ever pick up on how you paid for your secretary's abortion, who really owns her condo or where she bought that whip, without the type of technology we have.
What are the odds that the amount of money flowing from the banks to congress would be made public. I did a quick Markov matrix of it and it came up with NaN. Who is Nan? Perhaps it is too small and fails, because it couldn't be too big and fail.

Large country with large economy has large national debt. News at 11.

My neighbor is up to his knees in debt, and thus it is okay for me to do the same. I am sure there is something about "if your friends jump off a cliff", that my mother used to say, but I don't recall.

Re:Bitcoin FTW

[TeknoHog]

It's NSA that created Bitcoin in the first place. This is obviously true from the pseudonym, which in Japan would be written in the order Nakamoto SAtoshi.